


Trying to tell you

by afullrevolution



Series: Tell me what Pack Means [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Space, Cuddling & Snuggling, Derek!POV, Derek!engineer, Fluff, IN SPACE!, Kissing, Laura!captain, M/M, Marking, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slow Build, Stiles!POV, Stiles!pilot, Touching, Werewolves, building a pack, but fluff, mention of kink, with a tiny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:09:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afullrevolution/pseuds/afullrevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles loves to watch him, catalog his movements, track his facial expressions. Because, man, he's traveling with a werewolf in space. How awesome is that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You changed how I saw the world

**Author's Note:**

> Rating for language and references to sex. Chapters 1-3 are not beta'd. BUT - in exciting news! - [Survivah](/users/Survivah/pseuds/Survivah) agreed to beta forthcoming chapters. So, Chapter 4 and later should read smoothly.  
> NOTE - I think you might need to read the first part of this series for it actually make sense.  
> Ah, there is a ... panicky type situation. Not a panic attack. I don't think it should be an issue.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek’s first impression of Stiles had been a collection of intense feelings that added up to the sensation that there was likely something wrong with the guy. But something shifted in Stiles during the transition from test center to the ship and Derek found himself beginning to reach for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I felt like it and mentioned that I likely would.

Derek’s first impression of Stiles had been a collection of intense feelings that added up to the sensation that there was likely something wrong with Stiles. Nothing Stiles had done had been quite right, quite normal, quite within the approved parameters for behavior. He had smelled strangely sterile, as if he had been dunked in industrial cleaners and his gaze had shifted endlessly about the room, as if he couldn’t find a focus point. When the center’s representative had joined them, Stiles had also avoided touching her beyond a cursory handshake and a weird pat on the woman’s shoulder. He hadn’t spoken directly to anyone beyond the necessary (and approved) greetings until they had been sealed together in the test space. 

Derek had had serious misgivings about being locked with him for a week in a test space under artificially semi-harsh conditions designed to encourage rapid bonding with the goal of sustaining them through a longer mission. All he could think as the air locks bolted was that this was going to just be so much fun. 

But Stiles had changed entirely during the week. He started talking after two hours, once he’d settled with his board. Had run his hands over all of the room’s controls and started some film involving birds of prey on one of the wall monitors. 

At first Stiles words had been focused towards the equipment. Standard demands, requests, and then expansive commentary. 

Increasingly Stiles’ streams of words (a flow of information that reminded Derek of the updates that flew by on the lower right hand corner of his own work board) were directed toward Derek. 

And Stiles started actually looking at Derek. Staring, watching Derek incessantly and – what interested Derek enormously – Stiles appeared to be able to read him. It was as if Stiles’ was tuning himself to Derek’s frequency, his conversation narrowing in on points that Derek actually found interesting, jokes that amused him, and stories with clear relevance. 

Stiles’ flow was seamless, but he jumped wildly in topic, was never repetitive and far from boring. Minute descriptions of the ship fed into comments on videos once watched, stories heard, cultural practices. Human interactions appeared to intrigue him. Ships fascinated him.

The week in the test center had been simple enough. Stiles smell had begun to even out, loosing that strange industrial quality and Stiles personality had smoothed out as well. He seemed more comfortable with multiple points of input and appeared to view Derek as a part of his environment as opposed to something to work around. Yet, while Stiles became soothing, he wasn’t enticing.

Something shifted in Stiles during the transition from test center to the ship. It was as if he went from acting like a guest in the test center to viewing himself at home. Something loosened during the first two days as he arranged his bunk space. As he peered out windows into space and got to know the ship. He seemed to love the ship. To think it was just, beautiful. He appreciated Derek’s modifications and spent hours telling Derek just how stunning she was. It made Derek want to preen, to run his hands across the ship’s surfaces to show her how well she had done. 

And Stiles was apparently enraptured by Derek’s work. He would hover just over Derek’s shoulder, commenting, complimenting, encouraging. Stiles apparently wanted to know how everything worked, but seemed more than content to let Derek do it. It was as if he wanted to understand in order to offer qualified approval. To be able to engage. 

Derek’s short answers didn’t bother him and Stiles never appeared put off by Derek’s tendency to point rather than explain. A picture was worth a thousand words and Stiles apparently loved pictures. Spent ages with them, staring, revolving, spinning. Blueprints were evidently something of a fascination. Particularly when they were related to their ship. 

That was how the touching started. Stiles would hover over Derek’s shoulder, leaning closer and closer until he almost – but not quite – made contact. His breath would rush over Derek’s neck and his words form right next to Derek’s ear. Even if Derek hadn’t been able to track his heart rate anyone on the ship, the feeling of the words, the gusts accompanying ever ‘p’ somehow made the most mundane of conversational points feel intimate. 

It was relaxing and so very exhilarating. 

Even when Stiles was being obnoxious he somehow managed to be enticing. Stiles’ annoying habit of lying on his stomach, waving his feet just in the peripheral of Derek’s vision, just made Derek want to tuck stiles against his side. Pin him down and calm him. 

Over the first week in their ship, Stiles kept moving closer. Derek wasn’t sure if Stiles was even aware of the change. That instead of hovering over Derek’s shoulder, instead of leaning in towards him, Stiles started leaning on him, draping his light frame across Derek’s back to get a better look at his board. He would curl around Derek’s back while Derek read texts and watch films on the screen beyond. 

And his smell changed, loosing that sterile edge and permeating Derek’s spaces. Even Derek’s garments started smelling like Stiles from the continual proximity. 

It was intoxicating. And so ... relaxing, exhilarating, compelling. 

It began to become unbearable when they were already over a week out. 

Derek found himself beginning to reach out toward Stiles. He wanted to run his hand across Stiles’ back, bite his chin. When he woke up, he found himself wondering why Stiles wasn’t there, because it sure as fuck smelled like he should be. Derek started to automatically scent him.

So he decided to go for it. To tell Stiles and see what happened. It was irrational. But two years had become a very long time to keep himself damped down.

So Derek opened his mouth and used more words than he had likely ever said around Stiles. 

Stiles seemed pleased. Thrilled. And he wanted explanations. 

Derek didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to weave words together into a great whole like Stiles did. 

So Derek acted. Because how could he explain pack anyhow? Human words didn’t quite work, didn’t have the vocabulary for it. Words were too imprecise. And humans didn’t usually think about a full sensory experience. Because being pack was a smell and a taste, a state of being, a sense of belonging. Without already being pack, they didn’t seem to understand the attachment, the confidence of acceptance. 

And even if Derek had had the right expressions, words would have been useless, conceptual battlegrounds instead of explanations. Because Stiles was a kid from a can. He had never stepped foot on a planet, had grown up in a series of spacecraft with limited contact to others. Had spoken more frequently with people via avatar than face to face. 

So Derek tried to show Stiles what it meant to be pack. To demonstrate the safety of a pack member pressed against your back. To give him the physical connection so that Stiles could know even if he didn’t understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is not beta'd. I don't have someone to beta these. If you want to remind me of how this has mistakes, please also point out where the mistakes are. 
> 
> My fifth grade teacher told me I should read more. That it would improve my spelling. I stared at her. Because man, all that I did in fifth grade was read. I never did learn to spell and still greatly appreciate the development of spell check. Automatic word completion is, however, becoming a problem. Because - if you can't spell in the first place - it tries to give you the wrong fucking words.


	2. Let me understand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is trying really hard to understand what it all means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was planning on making this another part. It turns out I hate parts.
> 
> And - written because juhnonato mentioned interest. Simple as that. Hope it's what was wanted.

The thing was, Derek didn’t really say anything after Stiles gave him his effective carte blanche. Not that Stiles had expected him too. Derek was really more about the showing than the telling. 

Stiles just hadn’t expected showing to be so physical. Not that Stiles had a problem with Derek manhandling him. Particularly in the bunks. Bunk. Because – and this made second place on Stiles new list of “important things” about being a werewolf – apparently Derek didn’t care for sleeping alone. And evidently Stiles was really fine with that. He had never thought he would be fine with that.

It was a first for Stiles. He had never actually shared bunks with someone before. Not many people did. Not for sleeping. The bunks weren’t large after all. They were specifically designed to be personalized for an individual. They were just big enough for limited socializing, but really not by much.

That didn’t deter Derek in the least. 

When Stiles had said his ‘sleep wells’ after Derek’s wordy confession about being a werewolf, Stiles had proceeded to try and take the ten steps toward his bunk space. His very pretty, wonderful, awesome bunk space. The one that responded to his thumb print and key ring.

He made three steps before Derek somehow managed to herd him into the other bunk space. Derek’s bunk space. 

Stiles had thought that Derek wanted more sharing time. And Stiles was great with that. They could just set the sleep cycle back. Or bond over their childhoods under the screen lights. Stiles had lots of questions about Derek’s childhood. Perhaps Derek would wordlessly point to text on the surround screens and let Stiles suss out the meaning. It wouldn’t have been the first time for that particular scenario. 

But no, Derek had wanted to sleep. And – Stiles assumed – evidently part of the pack thing was that Stiles should sleep next to him. Curled together. And for all that Stiles had curled himself around Derek’s back during screenings before, he had never experienced Derek curled around him. 

Stiles seriously thought they were going to have to re-regulate the temperature protocols during sleep cycles, because, man, were blankets now a thing of the past. 

But that was hyperbole. Blankets were by no means a thing of the past. Derek had taken all of Stiles blankets and repurposed them. Used them – if Stiles remembered the expression – to feather his nest. Because Derek’s bunk now looked like those bird nests that Stiles had seen in the films on the mountain tops. Stiles imagined that Derek pulling him into his arms, tight against his chest, was like a bird’s wings wrapping around him. Perhaps a dragon’s. 

But Stiles wasn’t really sure the whole bunk-sharing thing was really anything specific to werewolves or not. And for all that they were three days past the “confession”, Stiles still wasn’t sure he knew what to think about Derek being a werewolf. 

Stiles’ hesitancy stemmed in part out of his uncertainty about whether the werewolf thing made any kind of significant difference. If it mattered any more than having been born on a planet did. Because either way, Derek wasn’t anything like anyone Stiles’ had experienced before. 

And outside of the limited number of spacecraft Stiles had actually lived in and the years’ worth of films he had watched, Stiles’ knowledge of people and their interactions was limited. Severely lacking, he could admit. 

He was fully aware that people shared different kinds of customs and behavioral patterns depending on their socio-cultural backgrounds. He knew that different groups did all sorts of little things that made living together work smoothly, that they abided by some sort of (unspoken) social contract. But he didn’t know what those contracts said. He had, after all, never operated with successful within a group outside of his father’s patrol ship. 

So was being a werewolf any different that coming from one of those odd cultures out there that Stiles was only slightly (or even entirely) unfamiliar with? (He had watched several films one year about people who carved faces into orange squashes. After the third one, he had looked up ‘pumpkins’ in the library. Based on t vitamin A, C and potassium content alone, they had to be valuable. To top that off, they supposedly tasted good. Yet, there were people out there who carved faces into them. Go figure. Stiles had added consuming a pumpkin to his growing list of life goals. He intended to eat it mashed with nutmeg. Stiles knew nutmeg. He loved nutmeg.) 

It annoyed Stiles just a little that he hadn’t done a full scan of all possible information on Derek and his background back at the station. He could have probably at least tracked down who Derek’s parents had been, found their address and thereby discovered what style of dwelling they had used. He might then have been able to ascertain what Derek’s social milieu had been. Determine if he would offend by something as simple as offering tea. Or if Derek had in fact grown up in a back-to-nature commune.

Because Stiles just didn’t think that Derek was quite what the library suggested. 

Given that the library thought werewolves were mythical creatures who could transmit a curse with a bite, turned into rabid man-wolf during the full moon, and killed their loved ones in horribly gruesome, toothsome, and violent manners (there were pictures). Stiles might just be guessing, but he didn’t think that Derek did those things. Or wanted to. Either way, it bothered Stiles that he didn’t know what Derek did want or even what he thought was normal. 

The one thing that Stiles had managed to figure out in the 72 hours since Derek’s gritted confession about being a werewolf was that evidently the touching thing really was important to Derek. Stiles was pretty positive that that specifically had to do with being a werewolf. 

Because Derek had started to touch Stiles constantly. And. Well. Lick him. Usually from his clavicle to his the hinge of his jaw. It was apparently a morning thing. Particularly a right after Stiles had washed thing. 

Stiles hadn’t expected that. No one had ever licked him before. He didn’t think anyone had ever told him about being licked before. But then most of his conversations with actual people had either been with the parental group on the patrol ship. They had not discussed body parts and when they had touched, it was shoulder pats and the occasional hug. Great hugs. Stiles loved hugs. But, the group hadn’t talked about it and he’d learned not to bother asking questions not directly related to work way back when he’d first learned to talk. There had always been film and texts to answer most of his questions.

But the library hadn’t answered his questions about licking. It had just showed him footage of people liking iced desserts and said that licking could be a sexual kink for some humans. Which was all well and good. Stiles totally believed it. Could even see the licking becoming something of a kink for him. Once he got over being confused by it.

Because he had no idea what it meant for werewolves? 

Because – again – it was clear that either werewolves were different or Derek was. Because all the talking Stiles did. He was well aware that most people didn’t like it. During his short stint at the academy, his teachers had hated it. Sedated him whenever he asked too many questions in too short a time “in order to encourage concentration”. (They put in his file that he hadn’t been well socialized as a child.) 

So, you know. He’d learned to keep participation down. To observe. Figure it out himself. The ships were always better with answers anyhow and didn’t mind it when he talked with them. Seemed to like it. 

Derek liked it to. 

Stiles could tell from the way Derek would breath deeply when Stiles got into a grove. From how Derek’s movements would smooth out. Stiles wondered if his talking was a sort of white noise for Derek. Something that calmed him down. 

Stiles had this inkling feeling that it did. That for whatever reason Derek wanted him around, wanted him talking.

Just an inkling based on how Derek had started moving Stiles, positioning him, pulling him closer so that they were almost always touching. Even working, Derek would join Stiles in the middle of the floor. Sit so that they were back-to-back with their respective boards in front of them. Position them so that Stiles could feel Derek’s heart beat.

But, but, but. Stiles wasn’t sure if that had anything to do with being pack. He didn’t know what it all meant.


	3. And so you see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles finally gets to see what a werewolf can look like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Birddi for the requests. I got half of them, sort of. Or, I got the argument. Food is mentioned, but I couldn't decide exactly how it should work. Given how much land rice requires and the carbon footprint of the paddies, I'm not really sure that they would be sending packets of it off into space. That said, it is great for storing. Less likely than wheat to cause hallucinations if stored improperly.
> 
> And thank you to the train to Trier. You are so boring in the dark that I got some writing done.

Derek had always found it was easier to hold onto his human form in space, without the pull of the moon. But when they approached one, their speed made the sudden proximity feel as if his body was suddenly spasming, as if there was a current running under his skin making his blood boil, making him want to scream in agony. He tried to hold himself together as his bones ground against each other and his muscles burned when he tried to stop them from reforming. 

Because Stiles didn't know, had never seen him like this. 

But here they were and Stiles kept talking, was facing away from him, staring at a screen covered with streams of characters. He was moving them, rearranging them, and telling Derek about how he wanted to someday eat a passion fruit. How anything with a name like that must be worth trying. 

The words were too loud as Derek lost control of the level of his senses and everything was suddenly screaming around him, making his ears burn as the sounds echoed, reverberating through his skull. 

The thing was, for Derek Stiles was pack. Indisputably pack. The knowledge that Stiles had never seen him change didn't make sense to his body. He just wanted to shift ... To let out his surge of aggression. To snarl and shove Stiles against the walls. Pin him and strip him. Because this, the proximity always made him feel the need to move, to act, to use his body. There was that urge to feel, to experience. Anything and everything. 

And it was worse because he hadn't been prepared, hadn’t brought himself down in advance. Had forgotten to pay attention to where they were. 

It was like whiplash. 

Derek's claws lengthened in his hands. He was trying to breath, to calm down. The idea of having to stay calm infuriated him. A growl broke out as another wave of burning sensation ripped through his muscles. 

"Shut the fuck up" he snarled, holding his hands over his ears. If he'd been outside, he would have taken off running. But there was nowhere to go and Derek could feel the confines if their tin can, hear the recycling air, the hiss of the oxygen tanks. Everything was ticking, whirring, screeching. 

Stiles was staring at him, his eyes huge, his mouth pressed tightly shut. Derek could see the horror filling Stiles eyes, tell that something was going on there, but Derek couldn't think. The small smell of anxiety made him feel worse, made him angry with himself, made him want to tear something. 

He curled into himself. 

He wanted Stiles to come over and fold his body around him, tell him it was going to be alright. Tell him that this was alright. 

But Stiles didn't move, sat there staring at Derek as Derek turned away. Derek tried to focus on the popping of the ship around them, the smell the god damned anise oil in the sugar drop Stiles currently had sitting on his tongue. Had been sucking. He wasn't now, his body was so still, heart pounding in his chest as if he were afraid. His breath shallow, light gasps. 

Derek wanted to touch him, comfort him, but was terrified his claws would come out. He was horrified at how his mind was turning around the idea of sucking the taste of the anise off Stiles' tongue.

Derek could feel the teeth lengthening in his jaw with his anger as he raged. 

The only place to run was through the small length of corridors in the cargo bay, but it wouldn’t provide the distance he needed. The exercise strip could provide the pace, but Stiles would be able to see.

Derek heard Stiles stand slowly, move away, move to the bunks. He went into his bunk. _His_ bunk. Not _theirs_. 

It felt like Stiles was rejecting him, turning away and Derek howled in agony, the sound filling every corner of the space before being swallowed by the weaves of the ship's walls. He could still hear Stiles' heart pounding. 

He forced his body straight and it fucking 

hurt

. Felt like he was pulling his body to pieces.

Derek let his body finally shift, furious with Stiles for leaving him but relieved that he could let his body go. Let the muscles bubble under his skin, let his bones break and reform. Fur felt like fire as it ripped out of his skin. 

The change was always worse when he was angry. 

He ran, took the all-too-short turns around the ship. Used the small exercise space to let himself lengthen his stride, already set to run film of forest scenes around him, giving the visual illusion of progression. The smells were wrong - so wrong - but it helped. 

Until Stiles' heart rate took a sudden drop. Derek stopped running, automatically crouching down, his ears perking. Stiles' was beating so slowly, the catch gone. His breath was steady and he wasn't even talking to the ship. 

Derek moved to the bunk’s entrance, leaned into the curve wall outside. He couldn't key into it when his hands were like this, his clawed fingers too different for the recognition to activate. 

Derek wanted Stiles to come out. Wanted to see him to make sure he was right, to make sure. Another howl. A whine. He couldn't hear Stiles moving. Just the slow beat of his heart.

It scared the shit out of him.

Derek sat next to the entry and whimpered. 

\-----  
He woke up when he heard Stiles finally move. Heard a moan as if Stiles' body was in pain. 

Derek repositioned himself picked up his work tablet with human fingers and bent over it. Listened as Stiles crawled out of the bunk, went over to liquid waste unit, and leaned over it, dry heaving. 

Derek wanted to touch him. Was afraid to touch him. 

Stiles smelled wrong, vaguely metallic. Smelled slightly like he had when Derek had first met him back at the test center.

Derek didn't look at him. Didn't know what to do with Stiles’ silence. He just listened, not moving as Stiles washed. He smelled like industrial cleaner when he was finished, as if he had wiped away his personality. 

But his heart was beating normally again. Continued to do so as Stiles tore open a food packet – pickled ume and rice from the smell of it – and proceeded to methodically chew and swallow. It lacked Stiles’ usual gusto and Derek bent down closer to his tablet, trying to figure out what he was looking at. Unable to concentrate on the board, he flipped screens as he listened to Stiles shift, push away from the table and situated himself against the wall across from Derek’s position, the cloth of his suit rubbing against the surface. 

Derek could hear every time Stiles took a deep breath, hear the click of his jaw as he opened his mouth, as if he was about to speak. Derek wanted him to say something, held his own breath every time Stiles's mouth shaped another silent word. 

Neither of them moved.

Derek finally looked up from his work board when he heard the click of one of Stiles' boxes of sugar drops. When the distinct smell of lavender filled the space momentarily. He watched Stiles’ fingers as they selected a drop. When the lid snapped shut under Stiles' hands, Derek looked up at his face. 

Stiles was slumped against the curve of the wall opposite and staring at Derek. Cheeks pulled in slightly as he started sucking on the drop. 

He tossed a packet of protein-vitamin mash over to Derek. 

Derek caught it, didn't look at it, turned it over. 

Stiles smiled tentatively and Derek stared back. What ever Stiles saw in his face must have been what he was looking for, because he looked relieved. Scooted a couple of inches closer. 

"Sooo." Stiles said slowly, his throat sounding scratched. tortured. He swallowed and Derek watched as his Adam’s apple moved in his throat. 

Stiles started again "I think," another swallow and the click of the drop against his teeth "that I just maybe took the wrong actions last night." Stiles' voice sounded hesitant. Sounded like he was asking a question that Derek didn’t know how to answer. Derek looked away. He put the packet of foodstuff down and fidgeted his fingers around his board. He wanted to pull Stiles closer, tuck him in and show him that everything was all right. 

Derek didn't move. 

Stiles slid himself a smidgen, the tiniest bit, toward Derek. 

"I took a sedative. It slows my heart down and pacifies me," he told Derek. "They used to give them to me at the base and on other ships I've been on. I. I forgot how horrid it makes me feel afterward." He slid forward another tiny bit. Derek watched him out of the corner of his eye, wondering if this was Zeno's dichotomy paradox playing out. Hoping that it wasn’t, because he wanted Stiles to reach him.

"I. My heart was beating too fast. I ... thought you needed me to calm down. I maybe panicked when you told me to shut up." Derek cringed. 

Stiles took a deep breath. "I'm going to ask a couple of yes or no questions. Just moving your head will suffice." Derek nodded slightly. 

"When you were .... I'm going to rephrase. When we were passing within proximity of M231, were you," Stiles hands fluttered. "I don't really know what to call it" he said, his hands seeming to indicate Derek's face, his hands. "Shifting? Does that verb work? Because" and he slid forward another centimeter. 

A growl built in Derek's throat. He hated the timidity of Stiles movements. Stiles froze and Derek froze with him. "That. That right there” Stiles said slowly, clearly trying to relax his muscles. “I don't know what to do with that. You don't usually use that look with me. Should I not move?"

Derek bit down on another growl. They were farther from the moon, but he still felt frayed, still felt on edge, as if he could tip over any moment. He was afraid he would loose himself again. Afraid because he just wanted to howl at the sky around them. Terrified under it all that he wanted to use the position of this moon, take advantage of the desire to shift that still lurked under his skin as an excuse to loose control. 

"Ok, ok" Stiles was muttering. And he was moving forward, actually coming closer. Finally pressing himself against Derek’s back and wrapping his arms around Derek. They both sighed and Stiles giggled into Derek’s shoulder. 

Derek turned his head so he could push his nose in Stiles’ hair, looking for his smell under the cleaner.

Stiles let out a huff of breath. "You know" he said, digging his chin down into Derek's shoulder, hugging Derek tighter before relaxing against him and the tilting his head away, giving Derek access to the line of his neck. His voice sounded slightly hesitant, mostly playful. "You haven't recently ... What to call it ... Marked me? Yet. You could. You know."

Derek tensed, claws forming again. He breathed in, centered himself. It was so much easier when Stiles was right there. When he could turn his body toward Stiles. When he could reach out and pull him closer. When Stiles grinned at him like he was the best thing in the galaxy.

Stiles didn't get around to asking any more of his questions just at that moment.

\----- Stiles poked the dark bruise, tilting his head to examine his neck in the mirror. All the way fucking up and down his neck. Stiles poked it again. He wondered idly if Derek would have kept going if the suit hadn't been in his way. Stiles didn't think he would have minded, because shit. The linking had been nice. But this. Stiles did not mind this. He liked this. 

He wondered what Derek would do it Stiles returned the favor. 

Stiles kicked the wall lightly and told the ship to give him answers. 

And Derek was there behind him, looking at him with a quirked eyebrow, pulling him away from the mirror, from the wall as if the ship had asked for it. As if Stiles needed to be protected from it. 

Stiles went with him, defending the ship as he moved. "Derek, Derek. The ship didn't do anything to me. We were really just chatting. But she's about as responsive as you are. Doesn't want to give me all of her secrets today. But I want you to show me Derek. I want to see. I think you have claws. I've never seen claws. Or, I've seen ships' claws and claws in films. But did you realize that I've never seen actual people claws?"

Derek stopped, looked at Stiles with that intense expression, the one where he tried to see Stiles' cognitive process, watch the wheels turning. As if there was additional meaning to be unearthed under his words if Derek could just look hard enough. Stiles put on his own best serious face. 

Stiles watched him considering, could see Derek using what Stiles had cataloged as his thinking face. And then Stiles was being moved again. Pulled into the bunk, tucked into their nest of blankets facing Derek. 

And Stiles kept watching as Derek spread his hand and grew fucking claws. 

Stiles did what occurred to him first, he reached out and touched them, ran his fingers over the sharp tips. He moved forward for better access, effectively curled himself in Derek's lap to play with Derek’s hands, providing a running commentary of just how fascinating it was. How incredible. Stiles turned Derek’s hands over, examining the knuckles, the hair, the tiny details of the change. 

Stiles wanted to see more, turned from where he was sitting on Derek, tucked between Derek’s legs and asked to see the rest. Because it was wonderful. Derek was amazing. 

Stiles hadn't quite realized the full implications of his request. He choked for a moment on his own breath when Derek pulled down the top half of his suit. Derek looked at him with concern as Stiles coughed, motioned for him to continue, even indicated his 'please' as he tried to catch his breath. Derek waited regardless. 

Stiles took advantage of his patience. Reached out and ran his fingertips across the line of Derek’s collarbone, down his sternum. Derek eyes followed Stiles' fingers, watched as Stiles pulled away. He met Stiles’ eyes and suddenly Derek’s face was folding in on itself, reforming. 

His eyebrows disappeared and his teeth elongated. Ears changed their shape, taking on a more pointed look. And his usually soft hazel eyes started to glow. The muscles in his back grew, expanded, making Stiles understand why Derek had removed his garment.

Stiles stared for a moment before remembering that he could touch. He stroked his fingers across Derek’s face, touched the lines of his forehead and ran his hands through Derek’s hair. 

Stiles wanted to know if it counted as fur, because this was coarser than Derek’s usual hair. Or, if this was his usual hair, then his other hair. He cupped Derek’s jaw and fit his hand gently around Derek’s throat. His voice was breathy when he told Derek that he was beautiful. That this had to be one of the best experiences of Stiles’ life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Ume is usually translated as plum. It's often eaten pickled and can be quite sharp.  
> -Zeno's dichotomy paradox is the one where you keep going half way and there are an infinite number of half ways. So you never get there. It was mentioned in a Calvin and Hobbes strip that I read as a kid. It fascinated me. 
> 
> NOTE - I intended to write a third part to this saga. And then I didn't want to do the tags. So I am cheating and adding chapters to a second part that _should_ have been finished with chapter 3. Evidently I lied.


	4. The wolf on the ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek doesn't like being a wolf in space, but he also hates telling Stiles no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Survivah](/users/Survivah/pseuds/Survivah) for beta-ing this chapter! Given that I changed something after, I am assuming that all mistakes are mine.

Derek didn't particularly like becoming a full wolf on board. The space was uncomfortable for claws, hardly designed with movement on four legs in mind. And low gravity combined with sensitive equipment didn’t exactly compliment increased strength and diminished precision. Created some definite problems in fact. Stiles’ foot bouncing off the controls might not have much of an impact, but Derek doubted the panel’s ability to sustain itself against his strength as a full wolf.

Most ships were actually ideal for a half transformation, with the exception of programming designed for very different fingers -although Stiles was working on a fix for that. But in full transformation it was easy to exploit the space fully, make use of the ceiling and walls. His heightened senses also made it easier to work, what with the ability to hear the length of the ship functioning, the vibration of the engine. 

It was part of why Derek became an engineer: because he sort of loved the sounds of the different parts of machinery working with itself, the tiny tones that the individual pieces made. It was just a bonus that his claws worked so well to strip or cut wires. 

But a wolf did not move well in a spaceship. Besides having a limited range for movement, transforming into a wolf meant an inability to control the ship or access anything. The space was engineered for fingers and opposable thumbs. Without the necessary fingerprints, the controls woven into his garments, or the keys ringing his fingers, the ship became inoperable, just an inert series of walls and breakable surfaces instead of an active interface. 

There just wasn’t reward enough for the temporary, but blinding pain of the transformation. With a full pack, it wasn’t as bad. But without Laura around, there was no help for it. Reforming muscles were going to hurt evidently screamed their pain without an alpha.

But then one evening, as Derek was just on a slide into sleep, Stiles moved away from his spot in Derek’s arms and poked him in the chest. He said Derek’s name until Derek opened one eye at him and saw Stiles looking at him with speculation branded across his face, in the way his eyes were narrowed, in the shape of his mouth. Once Derek’s eyes were on him, Stiles looked nervous, but asked if Derek could actually turn into a wolf. 

Derek opened his other eye. 

Stiles told him -as if he had to justify his question- that it was one thing - an important thing - to be able to take on a different form. Stiles emphasized his point by running his index finger down the side of Derek’s jaw, along the spots where fur sprouted, and across his eyebrows. 

Stiles got sidetracked, informing Derek that it was a shame he lost his eyebrows, because Stiles liked his eyebrows. “Because,” Stiles explained, “your eyebrows are vocal. Or, they speak volumes in their silence? Your eyebrows and the corners of your mouth. And your nostrils. Did you know that you have a very expressive face? Your hands too. And your shoulders. It's really quite fascinating. Does Laura communicate like you do?"

Derek sighed and pulled Stiles in, pressed his face into his shoulder, closed his eyes again. He could feel Stiles trying to still himself. Could feel Stiles trying and failing to stop his tiny fidgets, even as his heart the beat faster in pursuit of an idea Stiles clearly was incapable of letting escape. 

As was his wont, Stiles started toying with the material over Derek’s arms. Derek was beginning to resent the encoded cloth. No matter how useful it was, it stood in the way.

Derek’s resentment of his clothes might have contributed to his response when Stiles finally repeated his question, asking "Can you?" Or, it might have been that Derek found it hard to tell Stiles no when his face pressed into his neck, hands skittering across his forearms, feet tangled in his. Derek really wasn’t sure why he went for it. But.

Huffing into Stiles hair, Derek sat up, forcing Stiles up and away from him, for once putting a little bit of space between them. Stiles sat back on his feet, looked curious, folded his hands in front of him and then moved them under his knees. Opened his mouth to say something.

Derek stripped.

He felt the burn of Stiles full attention and heard the click of Stiles' teeth as Stiles snapped his jaw shut. 

And Derek changed his shape. 

The ship immediately felt smaller, tighter. But the inundation of smells was … engaging … overwhelmed the claustrophobia of the space. It was something safe, rather like a cover announcing security and communicating general wellbeing. 

Easily twice Stiles’ size in this form, Derek knocked him back, stood over him to lick his face and hands. Stiles stared up at him, stunned.

Stiles found his words when Derek licked a stripe across his neck. A wash of them tumbled over Derek, pouring from Stiles’ mouth as fast as his jaw could move, as if Stiles were trying to color the air. Derek thought they combined nicely with the smell of the two of them.

Words were always interesting in this form. It took a deliberate focus to understand them. The meanings in the rush of Stiles’ blood, the sounds of his stomach digesting, the catch of his throat when he swallowed, all easier to understand. 

Stiles was saying something about fur, but what Derek understood was the hesitancy with which Stiles pushed his fingers into the thick coat on Derek’s sides. 

Derek moved back to let him up and Stiles bounced up as fast as he could, following after Derek, touching his ears reverently, tracing the sweep of the fur around his eyes. When Stiles touched his nose unexpectedly, Derek pulled back in surprise and Stiles fell back again with laughter. 

There were words still, about noses being actually wet, about ears being soft. About this fur definitely being fur, courser than Derek’s other hair. But what Derek understood was the tenderness of Stiles’ fingers and the adoration in the tenor of his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think my apple juice has gone off.


	5. The center of the pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles isn't quite sure what will happen next. He works up the courage to ask and dreams of being a plant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you ever so much to [Survivah](/users/Survivah/pseuds/Survivah) for beta-ing this chapter and pointing out the particularly fuzzy bits.  
> But curses to my inability to write bad poetry in missive form. I tried. I spent a full day trying to figure it out. I apologize whole heartedly.

Hanging from the ceiling and letting his hands droop down, Stiles let his body sway gently while he worked up his courage. Because he has something he needed to ask Derek. That was imperative that he ask Derek. 

Stiles didn't know if he was starting to understand exactly what it meant for Derek to be a werewolf, or just starting to get Derek. It was impossible for him to separate the two. It wasn't like his sample size was all that large. 

But, Stiles knew it was going to get larger. Packs weren’t really made of two. Not for wolves at least. And that terrified him just a bit. He knew he wasn’t really good with people, but he was getting that with this werewolf thing, pack was definitely important. 

Which meant Stiles’ question just might define his existence. Or his life as he currently saw it. 

When Derek looked up at him, probably smelling his anxiety, Stiles let Derek’s ingrained gravitas work as gravity and let the words drop from his tongue to ask "Will Laura like me?"

Derek’s face told Stiles he thought the question was stupid. But Stiles had been right that it was important. After all, it got him a whole word out of Derek in affirmation: "Yes." 

Stiles felt like it was an evocative word, packed with meaning. Pretty clear cut. Still, Stiles needed to ensure that there was no mistaking the meaning, and asked "You're so _sure_?" 

Derek nodded, eyebrow raised. Stiles could see his curiosity about why Stiles was asking.

Stiles swatted in his direction, but the distance between them didn’t decrease with the movement. "That doesn't really make any sense you know. That you can be so sure. Perhaps she's changed dramatically in the last years. Perhaps she has developed a hatred of ships and people. Maybe she wants to be land bound. Then what would you do? "

Derek’s face cleared of his confusion and settled into a small smile. He stood and reached up for Stiles’ hands, tugged at him gently until Stiles slid his legs out of the catch and let Derek pull him down. 

Derek palmed Stiles' face, rubbed their cheeks together. Said simply, "you're pack" as if that encompassed a world of explanation. Stiles for his part was rather sure it did. "And you're mine." 

Stiles pulled back. That, he had not expected. That demanded an explanation. He told Derek as much.

"You ...” Derek huffed, “smell so much like me that Laura would accept you even if I wasn't around." Derek shrugged, took Stiles by the back of his neck and shook him slightly. 

Stiles looked at Derek’s arms around him. “By dint of being yours Laura will like me? That's ... I don't know what to do with that. You realize I'm difficult, that most people have a hard time ... adjusting ... to me."

Derek just smiled and pulled him closer. Inhaled next his ear. Bit Stiles’ jaw, turned back to his work board. 

Stiles touched his jaw line, skin stinging. That one was unexpected, definitely new. Stiles suspected Derek might be trying to distract him. 

Or not. 

Derek was pulling his board forward, pointing at Stiles’ and throwing him some text. It unfurled on Stiles's screen, resolving into an as-of-yet-unsent message for Laura. It was short, slightly terse, and reminded Stiles of poetry. Condensed and evocative. Stiles snorted and felt a surge of relief.

The missive informed her in so many words that Derek had found a pilot for the pack. That if she had come across a ship, then. Well. She could deal with the rest of the crew. 

Stiles grinned over at Derek and added his stamp so that Laura could access his full profile and scoring before tossed the data packet back to Derek with a thumbs up. 

Awesome. Cool. Terrifying. 

Because Stiles knew that the data packet would be stored on the base’s servers until Laura was in proximity to receive it which meant that it would likely be months before she read it. But, the fact that Derek had bothered made him feel strangely content. It meant something. Stiles just wasn’t sure of exactly what and even less sure of meeting Laura and the rest of her mysterious – and non existent – crew. 

Stiles hands went cold. He scooted over and buried them under Derek’s arms. 

\-----

Derek’s first pack had included a large family, who all lived together in a house in the middle of the woods. 

Laura, when they were little, had filled his head with the stars. Had so often pulled him out on the roof to stare up at the sky and tell him about all of the things that they would do someday, see someday. Tell him how she would take him with her to the skies and they would see the universe together. How she was going to take care of her shy little brother who didn't like to talk. How they would build a pack together. Maybe even be the first space pack. 

Because for whatever reason, Laura had conceived a desire to see space and she certainly couldn't go alone. Who knew what would happen to a little alpha with no pack on a small ship? Humans might be weighed, measured, and judged in endless ways to see how they fit on a ship, but there weren’t exactly endless studies on werewolves. 

So Laura had to take someone. And Derek had worshipped his sister ever since he was old enough to toddle after her. Copied her, mimicked, fell in love with the stars arguably because of her. Who knew? Stiles thought that perhaps Derek would have loved the emptiness of space anyhow. 

As it was, Laura and Derek had enrolled in the academy together and taken to the stars together. Their first assignments had been together, right up to her last promotion. When the new ship would have separated the engine room from the XO’s suite. 

But Laura had plans. Arguably the same plans she had had when she was five and dragged Derek up to the roof for the first time. They might be more specific now, but Laura still wanted her _own_ ship someday. Was determined to be able to pick her own assignments and have a stable crew that she could make pack. 

Which meant she had to build credit. 

And while it turned out that an Alpha took like a fish to water in a ship of new people to cower and command, a beta who didn't like large groups of people had problems. Got in fights, particularly when Laura got angry. He found it difficult not to lash out. Werewolf psychology just didn't precisely fit within human power structures. 

Derek’s scoring said he did beautifully in small groups and wasn't suited to larger ships. He wasn't going to get places near her, not when Laura demonstrated high levels of leadership potential. Inspired loyalty. 

He could have gone back to the family, waited for Laura to build up enough, but to leave the stars was an impossibility. 

So they agreed. Reassignment for him to as small a ship as possible for him, work on a promotion and skills for her. Perhaps, if they were really lucky - Laura swore she made her own luck - then she would have the ranking needed to run a small ship after just a couple of missions. Then she would be able to bring him on board.

After two short runs that were so dull they had reminded Derek of sleeping, he was here. With Stiles. He really didn’t mind.

\-----

Stiles had been slowly excavating for information with Derek, gathering bits and pieces about his family, about what this whole pack thing all meant. What being part of one boiled down to. 

It seemed as if the family thing and the pack thing were related. Interconnected. Possibly synonymous? 

He wondered if that made his father and the others on his first ship his original pack. Stiles weighed and considered, combing through their interactions. 

That group of people hadn't talked much. They had done a lot of sitting and being quiet, Stiles always imagined that they were weighed down under the load of their systems, unable to properly defragment or repair their permission. That they were always forced to confront information that might have been better off deleted. 

They shared space, shared food, shared the occasional story when they were floating loose, off duty. But they didn't really talk about themselves. His grandfather had told him during that one summer, that awful summer that Stiles had spent on the station, that the people on Stiles' ship all had pasts. That they weren't able to shake the memory of someone's face. 

Whatever it was, they didn't comfort each other, didn't touch each other, didn't share really. Or, they shared distance. They did the whole brave face forward, lived in a necessary and vivid present in which they didn't acknowledge the past. 

Stiles just may have read all of their files. Read their scores, how they fit together, how they had ended up in a patrol ship around a remote station. It wasn't always pretty. Tales of loss and stupidity. Of anger and flight. So many people running away, Stiles thought. 

Where did that put him? He had always been in flight, but never on the run. If you were born in movement, what did running even mean? 

Werewolves ran endlessly, evidently, but it seemed like they preferred circles. Continual circles that focused more on people than necessarily on place. For Derek, the center had been Laura. Stiles got the feeling that it was him too now.

Outside of those bits, Stiles had had to mine the little information he did have, had taken what he could find. It was exhilarating, in part because what he thought was relevant so often wasn't. He was reconstructing Derek's information. Seeing what it built up to - Because he felt like he was re-hydrating Derek's information, adding flesh to bones. He thought maybe the story was like one of the early reconstructions of a dinosaur. Those early years of paleontology, when entire beasts were conceptualized based on a couple of bones. They had been frequently very, very wrong. The early drawings were, as Stiles understood it, now collectors’ items. He thought they were cute. 

Stiles was relatively sure that the monstrous picture of Derek's past he was building was in no way even reasonably accurate. He didn't actually think that Derek's childhood had been filled with the trailing robes he imagined elder werewolves in (the excess of material was a fascinating thought though,) didn't really believe that a wind was continually dancing in their hair as they stood under blizzards that whited out the world around them while they did ... wolfie ... things. 

Stiles actually got the feeling that it was a bit more simple than that. 

He knew know that Derek hadn't come from a back-to-nature commune. Mainly because the family had never left nature. They had started buying up property as other families had moved to the cities and lived with the entire pack on what, in short, amounted to a nature persevere. It was on the Planet Protection list and everything. They were actually mandated, with a small state fund, to care for the forest. 

Evidently, some of those trees were really, really old. 

Stiles spent a day wondering what it would have been like to be a tree, to grow up in one place, with branches reaching to the skies. He wondered if they were sentient enough to long for the stars. Perhaps, Stiles thought, he was actually living out their dreams. 

He dreamt that night that his toes were roots growing into soil he had never seen. He woke with his legs trapped under Derek's, who had somehow curled in until his face was buried in Stiles' stomach. Unable to move, Stiles pet Derek's hair and wondered if this was what being a plant was like. 

\-----

Stiles turned off the ship’s artificial gravity, rolled into a ball and set himself into a slow tumble through the air, letting himself drift. It helped him think sometimes. 

Stiles had ridden high on his excitement about that missive for whole ages before another question finally started him in another tumble of worry. Sure, he knew that Derek planned on keeping him, but as what? 

Stiles decided he needed to be better informed. 

He started watching a lot of films about wolves, curled around Derek while they worked. Derek snorted the first few times he turned them on and then generally ignored them. Stiles told him to shut it, that there weren't exactly a lot of films about the real problems faced by the werewolf community, given that werewolves apparently kept things quiet. Derek had smirked at him, the bastard. Stiles had kicked him lightly in return, which he could admit hadn't been well thought out, given that it had sent him floating off until Derek had grabbed his ankle and pulled him back down. 

Sometimes though, on occasion, just every now and against, while Stiles was watching something, Derek would quirk his mouth just slightly. Stiles filed away whatever was happening on the screen under his growing catalog. 

Yet, Stiles still didn't feel like he had a comprehensive feel for what werewolves did, He suspected that it was a little like asking what humans did, just with the caveat that there were fewer werewolves, he thought. When he tried asking Derek that one, Derek had just tilted his head to the side and raised a shoulder. But, given that Derek also had yet to meet excessive numbers of other werewolves and had never heard of any planet that was populated with them, Stiles thought his hypothesis reasonably safe. 

He started reading streams of texts about interactions within wolf packs. Specifically about interactions with the alphas. He brushed up on human forms of physical affection too, just for good measure. Finally, when Stiles felt like he had something to work with, he selected his next question. “Do you share a bunk with Laura?” 

Derek shrugged. 

“Sometimes huh? But not _all_ the time?”

Derek shook his head, eyes focused on Stiles as if he were waiting for Stiles to get to his real point.

Stiles pushed his face into Derek’s shoulder so he didn’t have to see. Let Derek start petting his hair softly. 

When he was pliant enough to feel like sleep, he pulled back and asked Derek about how things would work on Laura’s hypothetical ship. How they would be sharing space. He wanted to know if he would have his own bunk. 

Derek frowned, his hand stilled on Stiles’ head. He looked like he was bristling at the idea, as if Stiles had suggested he rip his arm off and let it live its own life. Perhaps, mused, he was dramatizing the expression just a bit. 

But it made a smile spread on Stiles face. Because that, there, was what he wanted to know. He patted Derek’s cheeks, buried his face in Derek’s neck and pulled back again, delighted. "I don't want my own bunk either. Just. If you do, you know, you could. But, I don’t need my own." 

"Then no."

Stiles looked at him, pressed his thumbs along Derek’s cheekbones. Derek smirked at him and Stiles grinned back, leaned against him.


	6. Convincing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one in which there is a game of catch and a description of a raspberry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Survivah](/users/Survivah/pseuds/Survivah) for beta-ing this chapter and for telling me that there was just no way that Derek would quote lines from Aladdin. Just no way.  
> 

The game began as a fluke. Stiles started tapping his fingers in a staccato beat against his board, had flicked their standard low setting gravity off, and then flung the board. To Derek’s initial surprise, Stiles started bouncing from wall to wall, gaining momentum as he spun. In practiced movements, Stiles curled his body around, tucked himself in so he could push off with his hands or feet from the next surface. 

The first two times he went through the frankly amusing form of energy expenditure, Derek just watched, curious as to how it would end it. 

Both times, an eventual miscalculation on Stiles’ part brought him to a stop when he smashed into the paneled wall instead of springing off of it. But he just laughed, clutching at his side and wheezing when Derek pulled him over and patted him down. He wasn’t hurt, just breathless. 

The third time, Derek tracked Stiles’ speed and trajectory, waited until he started to slip, and then snatched him out of the air, using his own body to halt Stiles' momentum. 

The force of the impact knocked the air from Stiles lungs with a huff. He leaned against Derek as he tried to get his breath back, his giggles getting in the way as he gasped in Derek’s hold, a flush spreading across his nose. 

It started a sort of peculiar game of … catch … Derek wasn’t really quite sure what to call it. But every now and again, when Stiles started itching out of his own skin, began vibrating as he worked, he would abruptly slide his board into one of the ship’s pocket receptacles. He would throw himself across Derek’s back for the briefest moment, and whisper ‘Catch me if you can’ before bouncing off of Derek’s back and across the walls. It never took Derek long to snatch him out of the air, but it left Stiles momentarily breathless in his arms, laughing when Derek caught him from out of the air and pinned him against whatever surface was closest. 

Derek could not for the life of him understand how someone who’d grown up in a can could be so intoxicating, how he could apparently embody any werewolf’s ideals. Yet, there Stiles was in front of him, the personification of everything Derek craved. 

It made Derek want. Made control so difficult. 

"Sometimes" Derek growled out in frustration, letting Stiles away from the wall, letting his claws sink back into his fingers "You’re like a moon." 

"Because I make you lose control?" Stiles danced a light step back. Twirled, arms out for balance, before he pulled them in to make his rotations just a bit faster. When he began to teeter, Stiles grabbed at Derek's arm, jerked to a stop. He looked utterly at ease, pleased with himself, a dog with his bone. “Well then” he snickered, giggled as he used Derek as a tether to pull himself around his body in a complete circle, "If I am the moon that pulls at you incessantly, then you are the planet that grounds my orbit."

A talking Stiles, Derek determined, was just about as restful as a Stiles in flight. Yet his words and movement both were intoxicating.

\-----

Derek didn’t usually forget anything Stiles said, for all that he listened passively when Stiles talked, so after their conversation, one word stuck in Derek’s mind. He began to wonder what it would be like to take Stiles down to a planet. 

Their mission, as they had chosen to accept it, was an information drop. They were to act as couriers to make sure that their station’s mission reports both arrived and were not intercepted. 

For someone who had clearly abused his access levels, Stiles’ clearance levels were impressively high. But then, for all that he was impossible to control, when it came to information, Stiles might crack the seals and digest everything inside, but he resealed what he saw and never told anyone.

Derek thought that it likely affected Stiles’ clearance levels that the only person he had ever truly trusted was his father. Who was he really going to tell? Who would he spill the proverbial beans for? He didn’t have alliances, didn’t know anyone, had a general distrust of new people. He was, in some ways, the perfect courier. 

Stiles could handle the information load he had been given, but sending him out alone would have been cruel. Because for all that Stiles was unsure about how to interact with people, he loved them. Derek thought part of Stiles’ difficulty with them was that he wanted to take care of them, wanted to coddle them, but didn’t know how, since he had never been the focus of anyone’s care. 

Derek was determined to show him that consideration. Prove to Stiles that he cared. And even more than that, Derek wanted to let Stiles accomplish some of his proclaimed life goals. 

Derek wanted to give Stiles the experiences that Stiles clearly never really thought were going to happen. 

Stiles loved experiences, loved new things, loved discovering what taste was, particularly the rare 'fresh' tastes he enjoyed. He adored seeing colors with his own eyes, without the interpretation of a screen. And he really enjoyed the feel of material under his fingertips. 

Their mandate specified that they go to Earth-Station and fly back again. They just had to get there, dock, meet with the keyed recipient, hand over the beans, and make their way back again. They would in all likelihood carry something back with them. More reports, music, art, who knew? Derek didn’t really care. 

What Derek did care about was that they had time. Built into their flight schedule were 43,200 minutes for decompression – two local months of time by station standards to use however they wished. Many teams would use the period for interaction on planet or in the space station. To experience full gravity after the months in flight or to visit acquaintances. Some would use their leave to visit something after time-spans of nothing but the stars through the window and the temporary stretch of the warp drive as well as visuals on screens.

Stiles and Derek hadn’t talked about it, had barely spoken about any kind of immediate future. Somehow, between Laura lurking at the end of their journey and everything that was unexpected between them, they hadn’t actually discussed the specifics of their immediate future. 

But the more Derek thought about it, the more he wanted to take Stiles the three clicks out of their way to see Terra. He had been once, visited with Laura during one of their first missions out together. It had been reminiscent of their home world. It had breathable air, had been seeded ages before with forests, and had been heavily colonized for agricultural purposes.

It was as close as Derek could get to showing Stiles his first home. 

It would allow Derek to actually take Stiles outside. He wanted to take Stiles outside. As much as Derek loved outer space, he wanted to see what Stiles would do with room to move. He wanted to actually run with Stiles for once, to chase him through trees. 

Derek wanted to see Stiles in other clothes. What he would look like in red.

Derek knew that Stiles had never left space. Was aware that life for Stiles had always been observed under a microscope. It had never unfolded in technicolor around him on anything but a screen. Derek knew that the largest thing Stiles had ever set foot on was the space station, and Stiles had clearly not thrived there. 

But Derek hoped that in company disinclined to sedate him whenever he got to flippant, Stiles might flourish. At the least, could say he had done it. 

So Derek (sort of vaguely) put forward the possibility, suggested that seeing a planet would be “interesting”. Stiles laughed, told him that yes, he supposed it might be interesting at that. It took Stiles a week to grasp that Derek was actually serious, that he meant that they could do it. 

Upon which Stiles assured Derek that he could not possibly be in earnest. That the idea was preposterous, ridiculous, absurd. Stiles changed the subject, danced around it, mocked it. It was not happening. 

But every time Stiles said it, his heart jumped and he looked in equal measures excited by the prospect and terrified at the thought.

So Derek let Stiles tell him in heaps of words how he was not leaving the ship unless it was into another ship. No sir, no how. He might, just maybe, accept a space station, but really, he didn't like those much either. Ships were wonderful, molded perfectly for human habitation. The optimal combination of equipment, utility, and space. 

It was all an illusion anyhow, Stiles told Derek, explaining the mechanics of how the eye worked, telling him that the way the electrical currents in the brain worked meant that everything was interpretation anyhow. That what_________

Stiles presented Derek with a show about all of the air-born bacteria that one could catch on a planet. There were dangerous, microscopic worlds out there. 

Derek rolled his eyes and told him not to be an idiot. 

Stiles countered by informing him that what Derek experienced would never be what Stiles saw. Would definitely never be what he heard and certainly not what he smelled.

The non-argument lasted for days. Stiles’ protestations continued until Derek cheated: He told Stiles "I want to." Because Derek never actually told Stiles what _he_ wanted, just asked what _Stiles_ wanted with his eyebrows, with light touches, the statement had impact. 

The look on Stiles’ face froze in surprise, his body tensed, the thoughts and arguments running just behind his eyes for Derek to follow. Stiles stopped saying ‘no’, started actually planning the trip, charting their course. 

But a lingering anxiety continued to float about Stiles whenever the subject came up. Derek found it unacceptable.

So Derek tried something new. 

He sat Stiles down, activated the screens around them in the bunk and held Stiles close as he cycled through different films and pictures. Tried to _tell_ Stiles what he wanted to _show_ him. 

Derek could use words when he needed to. Had been writing the necessary reports for years in Standard. He didn't enjoy it, cared even less for the scrape of the sounds against his throat when they were so imprecise. He felt like he was creating impressionist images, trying to pick just exactly the right word out of the hundreds of thousands. It took time. He had to consider what exactly he meant, what precisely he wanted to say. 

For once, Stiles was silent, as if he was listening the most fascinating sounds in the galaxy. He playing with Derek’s hands as Derek talked softly, slowly, about how he wanted to show Stiles what it was like to walk in an open space, to see a forest. 

Derek showed him images of redwoods and tried to tell Stiles about how those trees absorbed sound, making it quiet enough to think. How forget-me-nots grew across the ground, carpeting the forest in blue, vibrant against the brown-red of the bark. He tried to make Stiles understand the feel of that bark under his fingers, how it was porous and strong enough to carry the tree's branches to the heavens through hundreds of years. 

Derek surrounded them with film of waves crashing and tried to describe the smell of the salt air to Stiles, what the cold wash of the water would be against their feet. 

Derek told Stiles about how it felt to lie under the night sky and look up at the vast expanse of sky that they normally hurtled through. How the sky would look filled with the light of the thousands of stars they would never visit. 

It went on and on: 

He talked about how sage smelled when it was fresh under your fingers instead of oil wrapped in sugar. 

He tried to tell Stiles that night about what sand felt like. The tiny, tiny pieces that no one had to vacuum away. 

Derek described what a crisp apple felt like during the first bite. The sound of the snap and the rush of juices that ran down your fingertips. 

He told Stiles what an orange smelled like when the skin broke open and released an intense fragrance that stung the nose and made the mouth salivate. 

And Derek tried to describe eating a raspberry. How different it was to eat one fresh from a vine that had grown under the light of a nearby star. He told Stiles about how the sweetness hit the front of the tongue and the sourness rolled to the back. How the tiny seeds made the plump flesh of the fruit slightly gritty, bringing an intensity to the texture, complementing the tartness of the intensely sweet fruit. How they stained fingers and lips, could turn lips a vibrant red. 

Derek started leaving up films of what he wanted to see, watched as Stiles would pause sometimes, for a moment to look, touch his fingers to his lips and Derek wondered if Stiles was trying to imagine the experience. 

\-----

Stiles could see what Derek was trying to do, knew what Derek wanted from him. And the idea was so utterly exhilarating and terrifying. 

Stiles wanted it. Wanted to go with Derek and actually see a planet. But, he just. He needed to work through why this was a no good, terrible, bad idea before he could focus on the reasons to do it. The myriad reasons that Derek started piling up like a tower of gifts in front of him. 

Because Derek was making it desperately difficult to remember that there were any dangers to going planetside at all. Derek made it hard for Stiles to think about how appalling he found the concept of the strange openness of a planet’s closed atmosphere. 

Stiles focused on the details of Derek's descriptions. Listened closely as Derek tried describe to describe what smells and sounds were to him. To tell him what something was like without the electronic filter that Stiles had always known. 

Stiles had always sort of assumed that his life goals would be met in tiny trickles, by the unexpected availability of a pumpkin during one of his short visits to a space station for supplies. But Derek was suggesting knocking off a whole set off the list within a short period. It was hedonistic. 

Stiles loved the ideas that Derek was suggesting, but knew that whatever Derek experienced would never be what Stiles would. Not only would the scenes they saw be clearly different, but their backgrounds and frames of interpretation meant their sensory intake of whatever they encountered would contrast vastly.

It made Derek’s descriptions all the more precious. 

And then there was the description of the raspberry. 

Mother fucking shit was there the description of the raspberry. 

For hours on end, Stiles couldn't stop thinking about tongues and lips. The description of how the tastes hit the different parts of Derek’s tongue made him want to examine it. He already knew what Derek's tongue felt like on his neck – a neck that seemed permanently marked with splotches of color that rotated between purples and blues to greens and yellows. He had even seen Derek’s tongue a few times when Derek had oh so patiently allowed Stiles to look at his fangs. 

But Stiles didn't know what Derek's mouth tasted like. He had really considered it a real possibility before. 

Stiles wanted to know. 

He began staring at Derek's mouth. 

Considering what that would be like. 

Trying to imagine with the words Derek used in his descriptions if it would be comparable. 

He temporarily forgot that Derek wanted him to leave his comfortable ship, and voluntarily walk out of a space he could control by running his hands across his board, by using a lever on the walls and enclose himself in an uncontrollable atmosphere. 

He looked at Derek working, watched how his mouth tightened slightly as he thought, then relaxed as he started tapping on the screen in front of him. Watched how Derek frowned at whatever he was reading. 

When they ate their food packets, Stiles stared at how Derek's jaw moved when he chewed. 

And he knew that Derek had noticed his focus when that mouth quirked and Derek started licking his fingers one by one. 

Stiles gaze flicked up and he narrowed his eyes to glare at Derek. Derek smirked in return, an eyebrow twitching in question. 

"I want to know what your mouth tastes like," Stiles told him, putting down his own chopsticks and reaching out to touch Derek's lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to go to the planet. And then I slipped and hit my head. Although, my head doesn't hurt nearly as much as my ass. I mean, what the fuck? How do I do shit like that so often?


	7. The Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That in which there is a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This really should have been the end of the last chapter. But whatever. 
> 
> Many, many thanks for out to Survivah for doing the beta-ing.

For Derek, the first time Stiles kissed him was both consuming and distressing, but more than a little exhilarating as well. All said and told, it was a little bit like the first time he left his parents' planet. 

At that moment, those years ago, Derek had wanted nothing more passionately than to reach the stars he’d dreamed about for as long as he could remember. He’d listened to the shuttle taking off from the ramp, gaining altitude as it shot across the sky, and let himself get carried away. To keep his claws in his hands as his heart pounded with excitement, he'd focused on listening to the different pieces of the engine engage, concentrated on the shrill scream of the air against the synthetic surface of the ship. He'd had to stop himself from humming along with it, duplicating that piercing howl. 

When they broke atmosphere, Derek had felt as if his heart might beat its way out of his throat, even as he could feel it securely hammering inside his chest. At that moment, the world was inside out and upside down, everything present at once. The opportunities that he and Laura had been working for, and their past right there around him. Wherever he was, it was nowhere and everywhere all at once. His skin hummed with the possibilities.

Which was how Derek felt when Stiles pressed his mouth softly against Derek’s that first time - during those first seconds as Stiles was clearly testing just how to go about this newest endeavor, his curiosity palpable between them. Stiles murmuring against his mouth of “just let me … ” as he trailed off and pulled back, all the better to crowd closer again, tilt his head just so, noses bumping and prompting a giggle from Stiles. 

Stiles placed his hands on Derek’s cheeks, a frown of concentration on his mouth and in his eyes – his expression screaming that this was serious, important, an earnest endeavor – while slight nerves peeped through in how he bit his lip. 

Derek’s heart was pounding just like it had in the shuttle. His hands trembling in their light hold on Stiles’ hips.

Stiles next (second? Derek wasn't sure how to count them, but knew that Stiles had his own internal chart,) kiss was firmer, with intent toward something more. He ran his tongue along Derek’s bottom lip, considering the taste, bit it softly, sucked gently.

Stiles kissed in increments, in tiny steps of exploration, just like he did anything in regards to Derek. He was thorough, precise, and always saving something surprising. 

This time, it was about taste. Derek didn’t know what Stiles found, but Stiles tasted like the sweet honey and sage drop he'd been sucking on mixed with that summer rainstorm he always carried on his skin.

When Stiles could barely breath any longer, he pulled back. He hummed as he touched his own swollen mouth and swallowed thickly, all the while carefully watching Derek's face.

Derek wondered if this was going to get added with the rest. The once-permitted, always-acceptable rule that Stiles appeared to operate by. He hoped it would, wanted fervently to see where Stiles would take them.

Stiles smiled at him as if Derek had just said everything out loud, as if he knew exactly what Derek wanted. He felt Stiles’ breath across his face as Stiles huffed out a laugh. 

"The results you ask? How do you taste?" Stiles ran his hand softly across Derek’s brow, traced his fingers behind Derek’s ear as if he was trying to tuck the short hair back. 

Stiles pressed his cheek to Derek’s, kissed his temple, whispered in his ear, breath playing now across the shell "You taste like a dream, that thing just out of reach, the one you know you desperately want, are always trying to get closer to. That dream where you reach out and grasp at the wind and because it's a dream, you can actually, for once, catch it. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either. But, that’s the point. Derek, you’re indescribable."


	8. Panetside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That in which Stiles tries and fails to dress himself and he makes his case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has direct references to sexual activities. 
> 
> Thanks to fuzzyraccoon for remarks in the comments that led to me actually getting farther with this. And thanks to Survivah for beta'ing this as well.
> 
> And - for the clothing - think of a cross between Luke Skywalker's white outfit and a Japanese yukata.

Stiles first step on a planet was not auspicious. It may, if you asked him later, have rather conveniently disappeared from memory. Or, if you asked him a second time, he might have described how the sky burst open above him as he stepped out of the small shuttle and how he felt like he was falling. He might have told you about how the sun burned mercilessly down on his face, forcing him to blink in temporary agony as his pupils tried to dilate. 

Stiles would then, in all likelihood, have told you about how Plato was fucking right about that moment of blindness. It was painful to leave the cave.

If Derek had ever been inclined to use enough words to describe that first step, he might have said that the process of disembarking was more of a voluntary dragging out of the shuttle than a dignified first step onto the inter-planetary landing strip. He might have described how Stiles tripped out behind Derek, falling over some dust, smashed into Derek’s back and then clutched at Derek’s left arm to keep himself upright, all the while mumbling about relative oxygen levels, pollutants, and space debris. Litter. People littered on planets. Really, not safe and so very, very wasteful. 

Derek sort of perversely enjoyed the entire process. Particularly when Stiles started singing under his breath about “the greatest adventure” and what lies ahead. 

Derek just might have given his amusement away when he turned to Stiles with a broad grin. He may have snorted out a laugh to see Stiles blinking his eye lashed as if his eyelids were a humming bird’s wings. He mouth was perhaps still quirked as he took Stiles’ sun glasses from him bag and placed them on his face, lifting Stiles’ hand to tap the third ring against the frame for activation. The glasses registered and darkened to optimal levels, and Derek could see the digital rings forming on the inside, kindly letting Stiles know about his options before flickering out. Derek could just make out Stiles’ eyes behind the lens, still blinking, owlishly now. 

Stiles grinned back at Derek, pulled his chin forward and kissed him lightly before smacking him upside the head “for laughing at my pain.” He stalked away, calling over his shoulder that Derek could bloody well use his massive werewolf strength to carry their bag. 

Stiles was much, much more forgiving when he saw the car that Derek had reserved for them. He practically purred as he ran his hands over the black hood, moaned when he finally got the door open and patted down the seats. Growled when Derek herded him over the passenger side, telling Stiles that he needed to learn to drive the thing before Derek would let him have control. 

But, but, but – Stiles was a pilot. Stiles knew how to fly. Driving couldn’t be hard. 

Derek didn’t disagree, just indicated that cars, unlike ships, didn’t fly. Had Stiles ever really done anything on two dimensions? Stiles could barely even keep full gravity on in the ship, spent significant periods of time hangs upside down. Stiles thought and piloted in four dimensions. That was the point after all, why he loved it. The calculations, the planning, the research that went into flying through space. Where anything and everything would be months from now. Years at times. This driving was reaction. 

Stiles was sure that there was autopilot to correct him if he had issues. Just because he had never been on a planet before by no means meant he was helpless.

 

\------

The planet was ridiculous, the space somewhat terrifying, and the rooms absurd. There was so much wasted space and the gravity dragged at one so.

And clothes. Oh my, the clothes. They were stupid, Stiles would have everyone know. They didn’t make sense. They didn’t fit. After a short fight with the reams of cloth cut in bizarre shapes, he wandered over to Derek half dressed, fastenings undone, confusion wrinkling his brow. 

Because these things were just ridiculous. The amount of extra cloth was illogical. They hung on his body instead of being fitted precisely to his body. They weren’t even wired. 

Stiles was not at all sure how it was supposed to be fit together. He’d seen these kinds of garments in film, knew that they were supposedly common – the whole loose trousers on the bottom with a top that wrapped and tied around the torso. Even those people in that really old classic epic Stiles watched wore something along these lines. But, shit, sometimes it was hard to tell from films what was normal and what was done for stylistic effect. 

But, evidently you didn’t need smart-clothes to visit orchards. Evidently planet people didn’t have to interact with machines every moment of the day.

Which meant that it was a tiny problem that Stiles hadn’t paid attention to how to tie a knot or assemble these garments. He could design a flight course, who’d have thought that he would have to know how to make a bow?

Which was why he was standing in front of Derek, feeling like a child trying on his father’s too-big garments to try and find his passkeys. He stood awkwardly, shifting, played with the ties, wondered what exactly he was supposed to do with them, wishing that he had full screens to give him a tutorial. 

But then Derek was looking at him, reaching for him, correcting the ties and patting him down, his fingers sliding over the soft, wireless cotton. 

Stiles let out a surprised gasp at the feel of the cloth. Perhaps Stiles could grasp why people wore these instead of the familiar, wired suits. 

"It's fine" Derek grumbled, looking frustrated, hands twitching over the material, looking almost unsure what to do with him. Stiles wasn’t sure what he wanted, so he stalled.

"It seems wasteful" Stiles said, running his fingers along the hem of the bright-red top unit. "But then I suppose the production is straightforward. It wouldn't take much and could actually be worn by different people."

Derek nodded. Looked nervous, looked away from Stiles. 

Stiles’ cataloged it, noted it, and started teasing apart Derek’s discomfort as he followed him out of the room and towards his first meal on a planet. 

 

\-----

Stiles at the meal reminded Derek of a child during a solstice festival. Just instead of getting excited about tables heavy with food, Stiles vibrated over a comparatively simple plate of rice and beans with avocado, fresh tortillas, and a papaya salsa. His hands shook as he copied Derek, using the tortilla to scoop the food off his plate. 

Throughout that first meal, Stiles was quiet, as if the beans took all his concentration and the avocado claimed his endless devotion. Derek felt absurdly jealous.

During dessert, Derek wondered for a strange, suspended moment that Stiles just might expire for euphoria when he tried a mango. Because as Derek peeled one for him Stiles went absolutely still and watched the orange flesh of the fruit appear. He froze when he tasted it and practically melted, the sounds he made as he licked his fingers making Derek curl his fingers into the table. 

“It's like,” Stiles told him, “these fresh fruits and vegetables live through their tastes. Their lives are short and they have to mash everything into all at once so that they can explode with flavor.”

When Derek rolled his eyes at him, Stiles laughed and told him that it was too good to waste any. Winked at him and proceeded to suck the last of the mango juice of Derek’s fingers. Stiles told him that he “bet the flavor would be even better …” before kissing him thoroughly. Stiles demanded to know if Derek understood and all Derek felt like he could do was nod dumbly, his head spinning. 

 

\-----

After Stiles dropped on the table in an exhaustion prompted by a mixture of gravity and food, Derek seemed to think that meant that it was time to go back to their room. Their huge and enormous room that Stiles was unsure if he liked. It was so impersonal. Impossible to personalize when he couldn’t change the screens and manipulate the air pressure. 

Stiles felt unsettled, content with the food, tipsy with the drink, and angry with the space. There was so much, too much. 

And the bed, what the fuck was it supposed to be exactly. Stiles had seen the films – could say that with so many thing – had seen so many things like this, but this bed was standing braced only against one wall and not inside a hole of some sort. It was exposed. People could just walk in. It was most decidedly not a bunk. It was unsettling. But it was also fascinating, a study, something new and terrible. 

Stiles poked the mattress from his prone position atop it, considering it while Derek stripped the outer layer of his oh-so-complicated top garment. 

It wasn’t the first time that Stiles had seen him undress, but the process had always been associated with Derek’s rare shifts. This was ... This was different. Derek made it look normal. Stiles wondered if he was supposed to do the same. 

But Stiles was so tired from the day. From everything new and full and so empty around him. So alien. And he was tired of waiting. Didn’t know why he had been waiting. Thought that Derek was tired of waiting to. Waiting was so difficult. The doing was so much easier, just like talking simpler than silence. 

Stiles tilted his head at Derek, that look he always got when he was going to ask something that had layers of other meanings wrapped up inside it. He patted the bed beside him and wanted to laugh with delight when Derek actually came over and sat down beside him. 

"You've never tried to undress me."

Derek nodded, looked away, looked uncomfortable. Stiles pulled his hand over and placed it on the back of his neck.

"I've talked you out of your clothes half a dozen times."

Derek raised an eyebrow. 

"You've got that look, the one that says it's semantics, and yes, you're right. I have never physically tried to remove your clothes for you and it was always about shifting. But, I've at least expressed interest? That has to count. And no, it's not a game, there isn't a score I keep. Not technically at least, just sort of automatically."

Derek snorted.

"I think you're afraid of taking advantage of me. Afraid of actually asking me to be more than pack, because you don’t think I know what I am getting into. Because how could I? I only know one werewolf, have never even seen a full pack, so how could I understand what you’re considering? So you think that I don't know the full ramifications of the choices I am making,” Stiles poked his finger toward Derek’s chest “but that just throws the validity of any choice we’re involved in into question. Because neither of us have done anything like this before.” 

Stiles paused, looking for an answer in Derek’s face, the twist of his lips and pause of his fingers over Stiles’ shoulders told him that he was at least partially right. 

"And I think maybe you've been treating me like more than pack for ages. You treat me like I'm yours, you said I am. And, that’s what I want. Because you know, whatever happens in the future will color our memories of the past. We don’t know what that future will be. I mean, we can predict the path of a comet so that we don’t run into it, but we can’t know that some other ship won’t happen to make the same jump. It’s unlikely, but you know. 

“And us. The possibility of what we could be, already are. It’s exhilarating. Even more so than the thought of another meal.”

Stiles fingers found the tie on the side of Derek’s top. As little of an idea Stiles had of how to fasten the shirt, pulling it loose was easy enough. 

"So what, wolves practice monogamy of a sort. Is it like that? Do you want me to promise to be just yours until I'm not? I know I can't promise you forever Derek, because I won't live forever. We'll keep changing. We already have slight lines on our faces and I'll likely as not get scars to add to my immunization marks even if you won’t. But I can promise you now. You have now anyway."

Later that evening Stiles would revise his opinion of fruit and argue instead that it had distinct similarities to sex. Beside the obvious connection of fruit acting as the ovaries of plants he meant. Just, instead of having the emotional rushes that humans did, plants had flavor. And, it was just as colorful, just as amazing, and certainly as messy.

When Derek flicked his nose, Stiles would admit that it was perhaps not his best comparison, but he still liked it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I might know where I am going! It's exciting!
> 
> I think either two or three more chapters, depending how I split it up.


	9. a planet and a kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something changed and Stiles examines the difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a long time in coming and I apologize for the wait. If anyone was waiting. 
> 
> Thanks as always to [Survivah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Survivah/pseuds/Survivah) for having beta'd this months ago. For giving great suggestions and having the eyes of a hawk. Any mistakes are my fault.

Reentering the shuttle was a relief. Stiles thought the sensation, the relaxed inhalation of air into his lungs might be comparable to what a fish experienced in those films when dropped back in water. Or maybe one of those whales that had to breach for air. (Those leaps looked fun in the film, like they’d be exhilarating, an adventure.) But space was home for him, just like Stiles figured the oceans were home to the whales. 

He celebrated by sleeping in all of his favorite spots around the ship, winding his body languorously around Derek’s back in the main room and spreading out wantonly on his stomach at Derek’s side. In the bunk, he slotted himself again Derek’s chest, graciously allowing Derek to maneuver him just so.

It was a refreshing to wake up and know exactly where he was. Sort of phenomenal to feel the weight lifted from his body. So relaxing to be able to stare out the window and see nothing but the pinpricks of stars, the light that had traveled so far just for his viewing pleasure.

But there were minor differences in the _now_ that Stiles was confident weren’t just the trick of memory, hadn’t been there in the _before_. Bits and pieces had changed in him, in Derek, in them. Little things, really, that Stiles thought might add up to represent something bigger or maybe meant nothing at all. 

Meaning could be dealt with later. Stiles enjoyed categories, adored lists. With a certain undertone of delight, he set about examining the little differences from all the angles he could. The meaning of it all could be determined once he’d defined the changes.

The _me_ was the easiest to examine. After all, Stiles had been doing it for years. He had the data from his prior tests and his observations to compare against. And he had to conclude that he was different. He wasn’t the quite the same Stiles that had left the ship, not when the bits and pieces that added up to him had shifted some thirty degrees to the left. 

Clearly, the planet had gotten into him and rearranged his insides. The noises and smells had wormed their way into him. Almost as if he’d gone, he’d seen, and had been conquered.

His dreams, even before Stiles and Derek had gotten back, had started to drift. They were more real, more vivid than they had ever been before. His subconscious had added in scents and sounds to the bright colors and shapes his sleep had always featured. 

Stiles decided his dreams had acquired grit. 

But it wasn’t just his dreams. He couldn’t watch his beloved films with the same eyes. It was like the frame of the camera had expanded. 

Now and again Stiles found that his own movements slowed as he stared at the screened walls, his memories filling out what he saw with certain smells and tones that the films had never had before. Because the film never quite matched the panoply of sounds, never made clear how the smells could crash and overwhelm just as easily as waves.

The films certainly had never conveyed the feel of the water rushing in between his toes and out again, how the waves dragged bits of sand with it as the water fled, making Stiles sink just a bit more when each wave crested and crashed. He'd never had to deal with sand before, had found the bits of rock and shell fascinating. Had been thrilled by the crabs and sea anemone living in the tide pools.

When they were planetside, Stiles had spread himself on the sand and felt the grit of the tiny bits of ground up rocks and shells dig into his skin. Derek had buried him under it and then, when Stiles had wiggled free and groaned about how sand was everywhere, Derek had grinned like the wolf he was and carried Stiles straight into the water.

Stiles had stood stunned for that first immersion. He didn’t know what to do in those first moment with the feel of seaweed wrapping around his legs, of the water rushing up to his neck and then down to the bottom of his ribs. He’d been paralyzed as Derek had wiped the clumps of sand from his body.

And a full water immersion: swimming. That was something Stiles couldn't have imagined at all. The feel of the wetness pressing against the skin was so foreign, yet his movement underwater felt so much more normal in some ways than the constant drag of walking with gravity. On land, he didn't bounce like he could at home, but the pressure of the liquid was sort vaguely, just a bit, similar to movement during a space walk. The feel of the water somehow reminiscent of the fabric of a space suit against his skin. It was a relief really, refreshing in a way he hadn’t known he’d wanted.

Although as he turned the memories around, examined them from various angles, Stiles could admit to himself that the enjoyment contained in those particular recollections were colored by Derek’s firm insistence that he be permitted to re-mark Stiles after every swim. Derek seemed to think that sucking the salt off of Stiles skin was a necessary activity, had said as he worked on Stiles sides – while Stiles had giggled and flailed wildly – that Stiles needed to “smell right” again.

It had made Stiles wonder – he was still curious now, during these first naps back on the ship – about how Derek had changed. Would change. Would likely continue to change. Because Derek had … relaxed. Stiles was surprised to see tense he’d been before.

It was sort of like an airlock. Everything looks normal, looks in place, and then you decrease pressure and can feel the difference, even if things still _look_ the same. Stiles thought maybe somehow or another that first night Stiles had talked Derek into undressing him had somehow released the build up of crushing pressure.

Stiles hadn’t known that Derek had been holding back before, had thought that they already had a smooth rhythm of contact. Evidently, he’d missed something in there. Or maybe it had just been the planet, which made Stiles a little nervous. Because if it was just the planet, Stiles would miss the difference. 

He liked how Derek’s face had become even more mobile , how his smile was broader, his eyebrows shot higher. And how he reached out constantly.

Damn it, he liked how Derek would pull him over, undo one of the fastenings of his garment and slide his hand against Stiles’ skin at any given time. He had no problem with the way Derek’s fingers would dip underneath his neckline when Derek put his hand around the back of Stiles’ neck. He enjoyed Derek’s apparent obsession with the full length of his bare neck and the jutting line of his hipbone.

And he loved the way Derek’s eyes would flash over him, how his voice would sink into a gravelly tone, and claws would press against his skin.

Derek had pulled back, apologized the first time that had happened, moved away until Stiles grabbed his hand and Derek saw his blown pupils and actually listened to his stuttering breath. 

After that, Derek had seemed less hesitant about shifting in front of Stiles when they were alone. He’d even maintained a constant shift when he’d pulled Stiles along on the longest hike of his life. Because evidently Derek thought that Stiles needed to really understand trees and should experience altitude. Because, you know, Stiles had never been up high before. Not like he'd spent his life in a short series of space ships. Not like he'd never looked at something from a distance.

Stiles was intrigued by everything, kept reaching out to touch, to explore. He loved seeing how Derek moved, how his stride lengthened, he may have laughed his ass of the first time he saw Derek run on all fours, something about the movement seeming absurd, even if the speed he moved at was blinding. It reminded Stiles more of how a cheetah ran than the wolves in the films.

Stiles walked, ran, and tripped over decaying leaves instead of over wires or things he'd left out. Derek continually caught him and chortled, his movements so free and open. Laughed when Stiles poked him in the chest and told him this – waving to the forest at large – was ridiculous.

But the view, even for being comparatively low, caught Stiles breath. Because the _detail_ of it, filled as it was with sweeping detail and mountain peaks, slopes of trees and snow. Stiles watched the low flying clouds move and circle as if they were giant shoals of fish.

It was all in some ways things that he'd seen in film, sometimes in meal packets, knew about in principal, but here it was actually real, all so fresh. Alive in an absurd, decaying way.

They sat on a tree branch, which dug and bit into Stiles' hands uncomfortably and felt rough against his skin. But Derek had claimed every bruise that Stiles managed to get, re-marked it as his, and somehow it made it alright to be pressed against a tree that towered above him.

But Stiles did wonder as he ran his fingers along the rough bark, if that had been Derek’s childhood, how then could he stand to be in a ship? If his childhood had been so filled with various forms of water falling from the sky, with the ability to lope through lengths of trees, and eat fresh food, then Derek could stand to be with Stiles now.

Stiles thought that maybe that was a part of what it was like to be a werewolf, the continual denial. The continuous resistance to one pull so you could answer another. Or really, maybe that was just what it was to live. After all, Derek had wanted to see the stars long before he’d wanted Stiles.

\----

Safely back on the ship, Stiles again had that niggling feeling that there was more going on than he was aware of. Because Derek did treat him just slightly differently now. 

Stiles had never felt that he had a particularly good handle on emotions, but if emotions had been colors, then he would have claimed that the color scale they were now using between them was brighter in tone than the one they’d used before. That the interactions between Stiles and Derek had become more intimate. 

Because Derek would get this absurdly fond expression on his face sometimes when he looked at Stiles, his eyes softened and the corners of his mouth tweaked up just a bit. He lost some of the hesitancy in his touch, as if he was no longer concerned about going too far or about taking too much. (Although, that to say, Stiles didn’t know if he had anything more that he could hand over.) 

When Derek looked at Stiles like that, Stiles would loose his train of words and Derek would just smile this sweet, gentle smile and pull Stiles close, bury his nose in Stiles neck and inhale noisily before letting him go again, leaving Stiles wide-eyed and stuttering jumbles of words that had lost their order.

Sometimes he wouldn't let Stiles go after. Sometimes he would pin Stiles and unwrap him, say things that made Stiles cheeks feel like they were burning. Leave Stiles without any words at all.

It was all slightly, ever so abstractedly unsettling, quite out of Stiles’ realm of expectations. Because Derek seemed to think that he had permission to do whatever he wanted to Stiles. Constantly. Not that Stiles had an issue with that part. It was the constant state of semi-undress and the stickiness. Stiles didn't know how to deal with that. He'd always understood that you were supposed to be clean, be careful, not waste. Sex was weirdly wasteful in ways he’d never previously comprehended. It took some ... reconfiguration of his view of himself and acceptable interaction. 

At some moments it reminded Stiles of being submerged in water again, reminded him of feeling the water's caress across every inch of his skin, what with the attention and care that Derek gave him.

But it left him boneless, how proprietary Derek seemed, how much care he took of Stiles, how much of his focus centered on him now that whatever restraint was gone. 

There had never been that level of concern for him before. He knew his father loved him, but there had always been that belief that he would leave, because what place was there for a young man with dreams of flying on a patrol ship. And for all that they were family, his father's life had been his work. 

It terrified Stiles at times, more so as they careened back toward the station. As his thoughts began to focus on what came next. 

He knew he was being irrational, but the closer they got to the station where they would be meeting Laura, the more Stiles could feel a low simmer of anxiety bubbling beneath his skin.

Because what if Derek was wrong? And Laura took a dislike to him? It wouldn't be the first time it had happened. The idea of Laura sort of terrified him. She was too important to not be a looming specter in Stiles' vivid imagination.

Or what if Derek was a different person around other people? It wasn't like they had really ever had to interact much with people together. Just a tiny bit for business, for prescribed interactions with clear rules. He'd never seen what face Derek wore about people he liked. He'd never seen Derek with friends. He certainly hadn't seen who Derek was around pack. 

And, most terrifying of all, what if Stiles sucked at being pack? 

Stiles started to tell Derek with emphatic gestures and wild movements with his hands that sometimes people changed, that it was okay to change. He felt desperate to make Derek understand that it was okay if Derek decided he wanted something else, something easy. 

Stiles saw the considering look on Derek's face, watched him watch Stiles in a strange loop of mutual staring until Derek shook his head and pulled Stiles to him. Derek cuffed him up the back side of the head and told him not to be an idiot. 

That night, Derek spent an eternity caring for Stiles, taking him apart and putting him back together again. Telling Stiles with a litany of movements that Stiles was his. That it was okay, really okay. Wonderful even.

Derek didn't say anything, but he showed Stiles that pack wasn't about things working seamlessly. Everyone got to have their concerns, their fears, and got to express them, having a pack couldn't wipe them away. But being pack was about saying "let me help" and being allowed to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live near the Atlantic at the moment. This includes a description of what it was like to be at the Pacific - which is an entirely different experience. That ocean is _cold_ and the beaches were rocky instead of sandy. So suck it. I don't want to hear about how warm and comforting swimming in the ocean is. It's cold, turns one blue, and will give you a rash from laying on the 'sand'.


	10. An Alpha and a Bite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are as simple as that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is gratuitous cuddling, some liking, some reference to kink. Consensual sex referenced but not described. Foul language as usual. Biting off camera.
> 
> Survivah beta'd this. Because she's awesome like that. Errors are mine. Because I went and changed a couple things. Tired to change other things and then ran into a metaphorical wall.

Laura looked exactly like her picture in the same way a scale model of a ship looked like a ship. Stiles could see how the picture resembled the woman, but the woman herself was about endless movement and vitality that the picture only cheaply mimicked. The images had completely failed to capture her charisma.

In person, Laura seemed larger than life. This Laura was vibrant. Stiles thought that together the siblings were a bit like the binary star-system Sirius, with Laura featuring as the loud white main-sequence star and Derek smoldering as the intense white dwarf. Because where Derek pulled back, stayed quiet, Laura's entire demeanor declared that the galaxy and everything in it was hers. That all this was her space, her world, her people. 

And Stiles, just like Derek had told him, was indisputably included among her people. 

For their first meeting, Laura's eyes had softened when she looked at him. When he'd held out his hand in greeting, she smiled like he was offering the world and she pulled him into an immense, encompassing hug instead. 

Derek - Laura told Stiles - had told her "so much about him". Given that Stiles had read Derek's brief missives, Stiles wasn't sure what that meant. Wondered if she'd understood something from in-between the symbols. Or, if she had just examined his files. But then the way she inhaled as she embraced him, the way her eyes flickered over the marks on his neck led him to suspect that she meant something else entirely. 

Either way, Derek looked pleased, looked as if Laura had just given him exactly what he'd been looking for. Because he stepped closer to Stiles and nuzzled his neck, slung his arm over Stiles' shoulders and grinned like life was fucking grand. An inkling spread up Stiles' spine that a lot more was going on here than he could know. It was a feeling Stiles was getting used to. 

There were, after all, a lot of minute facial expressions being used in addition to words. A plethora of ticks and quirks that Stiles gleefully cataloged as he mentally matched and sorted, noting particularly what commonalities existed and what was unique. He wished idly for a larger sample and was relieved that his wish didn’t magically come true. You had to be careful what you wished for after all. 

There was also a lot of touching. Laura would look at Stiles with a curiously fond expression and run her hands along his arms, over his neck. It was playful, affectionate. One memorable moment - as Stiles had rambled on about trees and Derek - Laura had smiled at him like he was reciting poetry and palmed his face. 

Group hugs were also definitely a thing. Stiles would be leaning against Derek, talking and Laura would just plop herself down next to them in this lithe, sinuous way and throw her arms around them both. They were, alternately, her boys when she hugged them, her pups when she licked them across their foreheads, and her pack when she grabbed them by the backs of their necks. 

Stiles did his best to follow Derek’s lead. If Derek accepted something, then Stiles could too. He might not be able to grow claws or arch his eyebrow, but he could huff and he could cuddle. Stiles personally thought he had become quite adept at the latter. 

But Stiles was sort of relieved to find that Laura never tried to share their bunk except to watch films, to curl companionably with them. He was also glad that she didn't lick him in quite the same, thorough way that Derek did. Not to say that she didn't lick him, but it was small, affectionate things. Like the stripe across his forehead. Or the time he managed smash his hand under his own tray in the communal cafeteria and Laura had grabbed his hand and licked the spot before he'd had time to hiss in pain. 

Stiles thought that being around Laura might be like approaching a black hole. You either never approached or got caught in the gravitational pull and sucked in before you had time to blink. You might come out again, but you'd never, ever be the same. 

And Derek seemed so very pleased whenever the three of them were together. His expression told Stiles that he thought that this, this was the way life should be. He would hum in the back of his throat when the three of them curled together to watch film or worked together in the main room. It was like the universe had taken on a softer edge for him. 

After two weeks, Stiles decided that the correct comparison to astrological bodies was that Laura was the sun keeping Derek in orbit while Stiles was the moon revolving around him. Together, he informed them, they were apparently a complete system. Laura let out gales of laughter at the picture and palmed his neck while Derek bit Stiles' chin affectionately. 

\-----

It occurred to Stiles that he might even be a planet in his own right when Laura started seeking him out specifically. She made it clear that she wanted to know what Stiles thought. She wanted his expertise and wanted to know about him. 

Laura wanted to know “all the details” and actually asked questions that Derek had never specifically phrased with words.

It made Stiles feel almost lost around Laura, a bit spun in circles. He didn’t think anyone had really asked about him in words before. And where Derek always waited so patiently, let Stiles make the first move, Laura just took. There was didn’t seem to be buffer before she was probing. She presumed, acted, and talked.

But like Derek, Laura also listened. She demanded, but then waited for the response. And curiously, where Derek had focused on the fact that Stiles was here with him right now, Laura also wanted to know why he was here. 

And in that vein of questions, Laura asked him why he left his father's ship. 

Stiles was surprised when she asked, froze in his spot on Derek’s lap as they watched a film. Immediately Derek was soothing him, making a low rumble of sound, petting Stiles’ back. 

Stiles fidgeted, shifted, nervously flicked his fingers over his board, altered the room’s controls. Lowered the voices and increased ambient noise. Swallowed hard. 

And Laura just waited, sprawled out next to them on the floor, her cropped hair sticking up messily in every direction. 

When his heart had slowed a bit, when Derek’s hands had settled on his thigh, Laura reached out and wiggled his foot, showing him she still wanted to know. 

And Stiles finally answered. “There wasn’t a place for me any more. Dad had his job and it’s important. He has a good place there. But the patrol ship didn't need a second pilot. And you can't just be on a ship like that, you have to pull your weight, earn your oxygen.” Stiles swallowed thickly and Laura leaned in, petting his ankle. “He offered, you know, to give it up, but he was good at his job. It’s everything to him and he’s really great at it.” 

Laura nodded slowly, thoughtfully, “So the little bird left the nest.”

Stiles snorted "Yeah, the little bird learned to fly." Sarcasm he could do. "I mean, I know my dad adores me, I never thought otherwise, he just wasn't the type to sit and mourn for someone he couldn't bring back and he had to do something. And people need the peacekeepers. There aren't necessarily a lot of people who want to do that and ever fewer who can.” 

“Did you think about taking a position with the peacekeepers, about earning credit to get a place with him?” 

Stiles throat clicked as he swallowed. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’ve got the security scores, but you have to have … my … I don’t have the interpersonal ratings for the job.” Laura hummed in response, nodded to herself. 

It wasn’t long after that that Laura cornered him and gave him what she called "the talk." Derek was in the bowels of the ship. They were going to out for a survey run and Derek had grumbled about how he wasn't going anywhere without checking over the body. Not when other people had touched it. 

In retrospect, Stiles would be able to appreciate that Laura had waited until he had built up a certain level of comfort with her and had begun to loose his filter. But, Laura’s serious expression, the fact that she corned him alone, made him sure for one, horrible moment that he had gotten it all wrong. That she was going to tell him that he couldn’t stay. 

But when his heart started hammering in his chest, his brain cycling through all of his possibilities for next steps – whether begging to remain or just backing out – her eyes flashed and she pulled him into a tight hug, cooing over him, muttering that her boys were always so on edge. It was ok, really, it was ok. He didn’t need to be scarred. 

Laura was excellent with the waiting game, so patient with him. She hummed gently until he calmed down, stroked her fingers down his spine before she took his chin in her fingers and forced eye contact. 

Stiles could date the moment that he moved from wary appreciation of Laura to the beginning of love to what she did next. For telling him carefully, in very clear words that “he needed to stop being so frightened. You are family, my family and I’m not about to let you go without putting up a fight. You’d have to be _sure_ and have a damned good reason before I’d even consider lettering you walk away.” 

Stiles tried to brush it off, told her that he “didn’t think Derek would like it if he left anyhow.” Her firm tone made him nervous, even more skittish than usual. He wished that they weren’t at the station, that gravity wouldn’t pull so hard and force everything to seem so weighty. 

She shook his chin gently and scented his neck. Forced him to make eye contact again. “Stiles. Don’t be absurd. You are pack. An individual part of the whole. An important part of the whole, regardless of anything or anyone else. Regardless of whether you were to walk away from us.

“I adore my close-mouthed asshole of a brother and he makes a wonderful beta, but in my opinion he doesn’t always realize when things need to be communicated on multiple levels. Particularly when they have to be verbal.” Laura went on to attribute her brother’s inability to speak clearly or coherently to his status as an engineer. And perhaps the werewolf thing. A bit of that too. Either way, she could acknowledge “Words have never been his medium.” 

“My point”, she told Stiles after a brief argument about the appropriateness of generalizing the personality traits of engineers “is that Derek probably hasn’t explained that werewolves actually feel a connection to the other pack members.” Laura splayed one of her hands over Stiles’ gut and the other over his heart. “Stiles, even if we didn’t all live right on top of each other, we would still wouldn’t be able to keep secrets. Part of being in a pack is having something like a radio signal that you can’t flip off. Ever. It’s just instead of reading coded numbers, this demands that we stay close, that we protect each other. To mix my metaphors dreadfully – despicably even – separation is like trying to breathe at high altitude. When I walked away from Derek, it was like the air was no longer rich enough in oxygen. My entire body missed it, felt weaker for the lack of it. When I saw him again I could finally catch my breath and you made the air sweeter than it had ever been before.” 

Laura stared at him with the full weight of everything she was and Stiles felt hypnotized, felt the gravity of the space station dragging him downwards. “So, I’m the very air you breath? I make your life sweeter?”

Laura snickered and licked a stripe across his forehead. Told Stiles that he was starting to get it. Stiles wrinkled his nose at her, asked her if he could please go finish his work now – the work he was supposed to do for her, given that she was Alpha-Captain and all. Or some shit.

She pinned him with a look. Because, no, evidently the conversation wasn’t over. She hadn’t told him he could do. Stiles whined, complained that she clearly wanted to rearrange all of his organs and not just slice him open with blunt words. Laura’s face looked exactly like Derek’s did during Stiles more dramatic declarations. 

She told him that he had to “understand something about Derek because Derek clearly wasn’t ever going to get off his act together and _do_ anything. Certainly not say thing.”

Stiles giggled, shook his head and told her that Derek always waited for him to start things. Laura closed her eyes for a moment and leaned her forehead against Stiles, muttering under her breath about idiot brothers who didn’t know what was good for them. How some morons were lucky that they found such nice, understanding people like Stiles. Stiles really, really didn’t know how to respond to that. Flushed awkwardly. 

“Alright pup. Derek has marked you just about as thoroughly as one could be marked. But there is more. Even if Derek would already likely cut his own arm off rather than leave you anywhere alone. Particularly alone without a pack member. But then my sweet little brother has always been the kind of werewolf traditionalist who thinks pack is more important than life.” Laura paused and frowned. Told him that she worried at times that it was her fault, that she had ruined Derek, what with the dreaming and the stars. She had claimed Derek's loyalty before she'd learned to read. Before Derek had learned to walk. She'd snatched Derek away from a huge pack he’d loved and then left him alone for years. 

Stiles found himself leaning back her, tucking his chin over her shoulder while she hugged him. He tried to replicate her soothing hum. Thought he sounded like a broken exhaust vent instead of a animal. Laura made it sound so nice, so natural instead of the broken whir of noise that was all Stiles seemed capable of.

Laura pulled back and narrowed her eyes at him speculatively. “Alright – this is important for you Stiles. You” She said poking his chest “are interested in what it means to be a werewolf and how pack works. Shocking, in any pack – in any group really – there are different kinds of relationships. You two are bound, mated, whatever in any sense of the term if we’re talking about werewolf culture. But sort of like you humans have contracts (speaking of, we should likely register you and Derek), we have bites and marks. Your current marks” Laura jabbed at a particularly vivid bruise over his pulse “are all temporary. Even if Derek treats your body like his personal canvas.” She shifted his collar down slightly and sighed as she looked at his neck, rolled her eyes “Shit, but he has always been a possessive little bastard.” Laura shook her head fondly. 

Stiles felt wide eyed and frozen. Permanence was. Something. It was definitely something. He hoped she didn’t mean knives. He didn’t like knives. But then there was inking. Maybe there was a pack symbol? 

Laura was going on, talking over the thoughts pounding behind Stiles’ eyes. “Given that you are the one being marked, normally Derek should do the asking, but we both know that Derek doesn’t use words. Likely thinks that he’d rushing you into things and should give you an out. Which means, if you want to mark this as permanent, which I assume you’ve thought about given that you’re here, then you should ask him to bite you.” Laura pointed to the juncture between Stiles’ neck and shoulder. “It wouldn’t” she told Stiles “change you. _I_ would have to bite you for that. It wouldn’t even change anything physical. Aside from the scarring of course. But it would _mean_ something to Derek. And. You know. To any werewolf who saw you. Which, given our circumstances, isn’t likely. But, symbolism and all that jazz. We do scars instead of rings.” Laura shrugged. “It’s maybe a bit extreme, but traditions have their emotional components.”

Stiles needed to know – however – that he didn’t have to. It wouldn’t change anything. Not really. But - Laura knew what her senses told her and that Stiles seemed happy with all of this. Although – while she was on the issue - even if Laura could smell (and hear sometimes) that Stiles didn't seem to mind Derek’s preferences - if there was ever, for any reason, anything he didn't want, she would back him up. He didn't belong to Derek any more than he wanted to.

“Stiles,” she assured him “you might have joined a pack of vicious creatures, but we care more about what’s ours than anything else. And my last point for the day is that it’s ok for you to do the same. So, whether or not you ever ask Derek to bite you, fuck man, get your head out of your ass and stop worrying about being part of this. Just go on adoring Derek, because Derek loves it.”

\-----

Which was why Stiles did his own cornering days later, after they were safely underway and Stiles had plotted them a fantastic course to the ends of the galaxy and back again. A course that involved a second star and a right turn. 

Granted, it was not the impressive, stealthy cornering that Laura had done given that Stiles “cornered” Derek in their bunk while Derek was in the process of licking Stiles’ belly. But Stiles had always been given to thinking about multiple tracks at once and made his decision at that moment, as the air rushed from his lungs, as he told Derek about how he’d read this book. A play. Had Derek ever been to a play? 

Stiles didn’t wait for Derek’s answer to that, instead stole from Laura’s playbook and took Derek’s chin between his fingers, made Derek meet his eyes. Derek looked like he was about to laugh, muscles around his eyes twitching, at the expression on Stiles’ face. Stiles could acknowledge that it might not have been his best move to try and look serious when his pupils were blown and he was covered with a sheen of sweat. 

But this was important. He wanted to be clear, no matter how quickly his heart was tripping over itself in his chest. 

So he started by telling Derek “I’m pack”. Derek had snorted, tried to lean in toward Stiles again, let Stiles stop him, fingers tracing their way along his jaw. 

“And to you I’m something more than pack.” Derek stilled, his face twitched into the expression that read as acquiescence and confusion, but he settled against Stiles, clearly willing to see where Stiles was going with this. 

“So, I want you to bite me” Derek’s eyes widened. “I don’t,” Stiles paused, “know how it works, but Laura told me that. It’s sort of an official type thing. And. Well. I want. That.”

Evidently Derek did too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have another bit. Set in the future by a couple years and from Boyd's point of view. I'm not really sure what to do with it. Thinking about posting it as a third part to this strange story. Mainly because of purring plants. 
> 
> But, whatever. Final chapter to this! Hope it was an interesting read. The ending of this really caught me up in a bind.

**Author's Note:**

> I think that this will likely have around 9 or 10 chapters in total and get up to around 18000 words. There is a list of things I am trying to fill and it's getting there. Sort of.


End file.
